Here's a short clip of me practicing my arrangement of "Pokemon League" from DPPt for my next cover.
What's immediately obvious is that unlike my previous covers, this one is 100% solo guitar, which means the whole thing needs to be played in one continuous take (without mistakes)! For a 3-minute arrangement, that requires a lot of practice - probably the most I've done for any single part of a cover. On the flip side, since there's just a single track, very little mixing is required, so I like to think that the time that I would be spending on production is instead being put towards performance - a welcome change of pace compared to my previous covers.
Overall I'm pretty content with how the arrangement is sounding - condensing all the complex voicings along with the melody and counter-melody to a single guitar track was quite a challenge, and while it's not 1:1 with the original, I think it works pretty well! That, along with the dreamy guitar tone often puts me in a relaxed, almost trance-like state while playing it.
If everything goes well, I should have the final version uploaded before the end of the month!
Fair warning for subscribers of the "Stems" tier: as this is a solo guitar piece, stems will not be available for this cover, so consider changing your tier to a lower one for this cover if you're subscribed for the rewards.
We're almost through January already so I hope it's not too late to call this a "new year's update" but anyway, I hope you all enjoyed the holidays and had a good start to the year! I just wanted to post a little update to assure you that I'm still alive and continuing to work on new music.
Before we get into what I've got in store for this year, I want to take a moment to reflect on my last release, the DPPt Medley. It's been less than 2 months since it's release and it's already approaching half a million views which makes it by far the best performing video in that timeframe (for comparison, the RSE medley got a little over 200k in the same time), so a big thanks to everyone who's watched, commented on, and shared the video - it means a lot to know that so many of you are enjoying it!
Now onto future plans - so far I've mostly just been taking it easy up to this point and enjoying the sudden abundance of free time since the DPPt Medley's release as well as catching up on stuff I've been putting off until that point, but I've also been fooling around with some arrangements for potential future covers. In fact I've already managed to complete one such arrangement. Without completely giving it away, I can say that it's from Pokemon DPPt and it's a solo arrangement for electric guitar - something I haven't done on my channel up until this point. I chose this particular song because after working on the extremely dense and technical arrangements of the DPPt medley, I felt a strong urge to do a total 180 from that and work on a sparse, stripped down arrangement where the focus is on the performance rather than the production, so that's what you can expect for my next cover.
As for bigger projects, I'm already sowing the seeds for a new medley (or possibly an album) but it's in such early stages that I really can't comment any further than that because there's no guarantee that it will even get completed. Since there's a lot of speculation (or even assumptions) that I'm doing a gen 5/2/x medley next, I'll save you the future disappointment and say that another Pokemon medley is not currently in the works. That does not, however, mean that I'm ruling out the possibility of doing another one in the future.
Aside from that, if all goes well I may release my first original music this year. I've been given the incredible opportunity to produce a track for the game studio that I'm currently working at, so if all goes well I might share that on my channel if/when it works out.
Finally, music aside, I've started work on developing a website for Dr. Pez. Some of you might have noticed that I've overhauled the links in the descriptions of all my videos so that they go through my domain - right now it's essentially being used as a link shortener but I'd like to develop it into a working website this year. The goal is to have a place where I can present everything related to me and my work in a single place and make an effort to branch out into doing more freelance work in music production, specifically geared towards original music. If you have any suggestions for what you'd like to see on the website let me hear it!
That's all for now. I'll probably post another update shortly before my next cover is ready to release, maybe in a month or so. See you then!
Supporters of the "Lossless Quality Audio" tier or higher: a download link for a FLAC copy of the medley has been sent to your Patreon email addresses; enjoy! If you didn't receive it, one of the following is possible:
(1) It got filtered as spam
(2) You subscribed or upgraded to this tier after the paid post yesterday
(3) I made a mistake (please let me know via DM)
In the case of option 2, this reward is still available! I only ask, in the spirit of fairness, that you donate an amount equal to what subscribers of this tier were charged ($5, if you're a new patron), or, in case you upgraded from a previous tier, the difference from the previous tier ($3 if upgrading from "Behind-the-Scenes Content", $2 if upgrading from "Early Access"). If you fall into one of those categories, please DM me for details on how to donate.
Supporters of the "Stems" tier: as mentioned in my previous post, your download link will be sent tomorrow.
To those that have had a chance to listen to the medley already, thank you for the positive response so far! I'm glad to see you all enjoying it.
After watching the video a few more times, I noticed a small issue with the audio so I made the decision to upload a new version with a fix. Anyone listening on a system with a subwoofer might have noticed excessive bass in the ultra-low frequencies (below ~80Hz) so this version aims to correct that. Most speakers can't accurately reproduce those frequencies so the difference won't be perceptible for most people. My apologies for not catching that earlier, but I'm glad I did catch it before it went public.
The downside is that the comments on the first version will be lost, so if you've already left a comment, it would be appreciated if you could copy/paste it from the old version to the new version so that everyone can see it! Thank you in advance!
This will most definitely be the final version as we're quickly approaching public release. Very excited to see what the response will be like!
First of all, sorry for keeping you waiting since my last post. The last few weeks were the final stretch of this project so I wanted to focus my efforts on working towards its completion with minimal distractions. Big thanks for your patience!
Now onto the news you've been waiting for: the medley will be released on November 28 for early access and November 29 for the general public! I want to assure you with all the previous delays that this isn't just an estimate, this is the confirmed date which I'll announce shortly on my other social media pages.
I want to once again thank all of you for your support and patience during the development of this project - the amount of support this project has gotten has far exceeded what I expected when I embarked on it, so cheers to that! Thanks to you, I'll be able to fund similar projects in the future.
As promised, I'm revealing the tracklist for the medley with timestamps from the video here. I did my best to include as many of the tracks that I feel best represent 4th gen, but as with any medley, I had to make decisions about which to include and which not to, so apologies in advance if your favorite track isn't on the list. With that said, I'm really pleased about how all the pieces work together as a unit and I think the transitions that connect them together are among the best out of any project I've done so far.
Lastly, in the spirit of full disclosure, I want to lay out how I plan to handle payments for this project to eliminate any doubts you might have:
In an attempt to make things as simple as possible, there will be a single paid post for all tiers when early access goes live on November 28.
You'll be billed your pledged amount by Patreon at the beginning of the next month (December)
There will be separate posts for each of the following tiers containing their respective rewards rolled out in a staggered fashion: - The Early Access post will drop immediately after the general post on November 28 - The Lossless Audio post will drop when the medley goes public on November - The Stems post will drop a day later, on November 30
Supporters of tiers that include digital media as a reward (lossless audio, stems) will have those rewards delivered to the email associated with your Patreon account. Note that these rewards are available only to supporters that signed up prior to early access on November 28.
Can't wait for you all to hear it - see you in a week!
You're probably expecting this to be the release post, but alas, it's not quite there. Once again I've underestimated the amount of time it's going to take to finish this and I know you're all probably fed up with the delays, so for that I apologize.
The good news is that it is very close to being finished and sounding great (in my opinion), it's just that the mix + video edit is proving to take longer than I thought so I'm going to need a little more time to finalize things. I don't expect it to take longer than a couple of weeks, but based on how laughably off my previous estimates were, I'll refrain from making any further estimates until it's completely done and I can confirm a release date. My next post will reveal that date along with the tracklist (20 tracks, which by my count I've already revealed 13 here, so 7 to look forward to). Until then, enjoy this clip of what I've been working on most recently: Route 206 featuring Doug Perry on marimba and Laura Intravia on flute.
At long last, filming is a wrap! This was one of the last steps of production so we're quickly approaching release now. The bad news is that I'm left with literally hundreds of video clips to sift through and assemble into the final edit, so it's going to take a little longer than my last estimate of September 30; the new estimate is October 10-20. This should give me more than enough time to edit the video and tie up any remaining loose ends.
With that said, here's a little preview of how the video editing is shaping up, featuring Team Galactic Battle with Marc Papeghin on trumpet.
A couple of weeks ago I rented out a room in which I recorded a bunch of grand piano footage for the medley, and I'm finally able to share with you how it turned out. I'm happy to report that it was a great success!
The main motivation for shooting a real grand piano as opposed to my usual keyboard is due to a single track that's been haunting me ever since I arranged it: Cynthia's theme. I knew it had to be in the medley but from day 1 I had lingering doubts if it was even possible to play. Sure, there's a handful of covers out there (and some of them are quite impressive!) but not a single one that I've seen plays the left-hand arpeggios doubled up an octave like in the original. Some might argue that it's a small detail, but I really believe that the extra octave fills a space that makes the track feel somewhat empty without it, so I decided to challenge myself to see how I can make it happen.
I only have 2 hands, so it became clear that this was going to be a 2-person job. I could record both parts independently by myself, but to ease the workload and make the performance more impressive, I wanted someone to perform it beside me. Lucky for me, my girlfriend happens to be a talented pianist, so I pitched the idea. Naturally, after hearing the piece she was intimidated at first, but with a little coaxing I managed to convince her to give it a shot.
Now I'm in a position where I have someone talented enough to play this extraordinarily difficult piece with me, so I'm thinking to myself, "does a keyboard seem like an appropriate instrument to play such a piece?" After a few dead ends the stars aligned, and I was able to rent out this ideal space with an instrument worthy to play this piece on.
The attached clip is a mere 30 seconds but the amount of practice and preparation that went into making it happen was borderline madness. Now that that massive hurdle is behind me, it feels like it's all downhill from here on out.
As I mentioned in my last update post, tracking is complete and filming has begun, so here's a little sneak peak at how it's looking featuring one of the most high-energy parts in the medley!
A lot has happened since my last post; things are starting to fall into place so it's time for a bigger update this week!
Since my last post, I:
Completed recording of the organ tracks; that was the last instrument on the list so apart from a few small outstanding parts, tracking is essentially complete!
Started filming for the video; I started with (and already completed) the organ since it was fresh in my memory
Completed my playthrough of Pokemon Diamond and collected gameplay footage to use in the video
Reserved a date for a grand piano recording session at the end of the month; I'm really excited about this but it's still pending approval so fingers crossed!
In the coming weeks I plan to:
Continue filming video
Track the last of the outstanding parts
Add orchestration the parts that need it
Refine and finalize the mix
If that all goes smoothly, and especially if the grand piano booking goes through, I can cautiously say that September 30 is a strong candidate for a release date. There's still a fair amount of work to be done and and of course unforeseen delays that may happen, so I'm refraining from announcing this date on my public channels until I'm certain that I can meet it, but I know a lot you are dying to know when it's gonna drop so I'm giving you my best estimate here first.
Once again I'd like to thank you for your incredible patience and support while I continue to work my way through this mountainous project - I really appreciate hearing all the words of encouragement from those that have taken the time to write them!
An instrument that's easy to overlook but one that has gradually become a core part of my sound over the past several years - this week I'm recording Hammond organ, and oh boy is this medley full of it. So much that not a single track out of the 20 doesn't have it! Out of all the instruments I've recorded so far, the organ has probably been the most enjoyable to work on - there's something about the sound that just makes it so fun to play. Here's a little snippet from a track where it takes center stage as the featured instrument as opposed to sitting in the background like it usually is. Hope you dig it!
For many, this is the defining theme of 4th gen, so of course I had to include it in the medley!
This was one of the more difficult tracks to arrange for the medley. Aside from that heavenly piano part, the original arrangement is, well, kind of uninspiring to me. Until about a minute in, not much is going on with the rhythm section, so it was a struggle to come up with something that was a little more "dynamic". I think the half-time feel in my arrangement grooves a little better and works better in a guitar-heavy context. Here's a little snippet of the main piano parts, with the rest to be revealed after release. Enjoy!
Piano - one of the stand-out instruments from 4th gen!
Over the past couple of weeks I've been practicing and recording those iconic parts that set this gen apart from the rest. Learning them has been an eye-opening experience - when you dig down past the surface level, a lot of these tracks have some really interesting voicings, a quality that the previous gens didn't even come close to matching. Here's a quick playthrough of one such part - in the original version it's buried pretty low in the mix but when you focus on it you realize that it's actually pretty intricate! Here's how it sounds in a bare-bones mix so that it's clearly audible and present.
Short clip this week but I wanted to give you all a sneak peek at a new instrument that I've learned to play specifically for the medley - the chromatic button accordion! You've probably seen me playing accordion in some of my videos, but the one you see here is different in the way the notes are laid out on the right-hand side of the instrument; as opposed to the standard piano-style layout, the buttons on this accordion are laid out chromatically in a series of rows.
Although I could have just as well played this on a piano accordion, I chose to go with this one mainly because the sound was more pleasant and fitting for this tune. Getting familiar with the button-style layout was surprisingly easy and it only took about an hour or so before I could play through the part without pauses. Hope you like how it sounds!
After 3 straight weeks of recording almost daily, the last of the acoustic guitar tracks are complete! Needless to say, you'll be hearing a lot of this instrument throughout the medley. Most of the time it will be sitting in the background, reinforcing the other instruments, but I thought I'd share a small section where it's front and center. The sleepy, laid-back feel of this tune introduces a much-needed change of pace midway through a medley full of lively, energetic arrangements.
Although not included in this clip, I'm excited to hear what you think of the instrument that I chose to play the main melody of this track - it's something I've never worked with before and far from a typical choice for something of this style. Curious to hear what instrument you imaging playing the melody when listening to this!
Acoustic guitars - they're not the centerpiece of the medley by any means but they play a crucial role in holding down the rhythm and adding that crisp high-end "icing" to the mix. Without them, the medley would be bland. For those reasons it's absolutely essential that they're locked in with the drums - any small timing inconsistencies will be glaringly apparent. That's something I've always struggled with, so I'm putting in the extra work to make sure they're as tight as possible for this project. I hope you like how they're sounding on one of the fan favorites - Route 209!
I'm also trying out a new lens here with an ultra-low f-stop of 1.4. The lighting in this clip doesn't do it any justice, but I really dig the bokeh effect it can do, and I think it will work fantastically well for the close-up shots when it comes time for filming.
Tracking of the lead guitars (and all electric guitars by extension) is finally complete! It's been a while since I posted last because I've been held back by learning and perfecting the most challenging-to-play parts of the medley.
Throughout the medley there's a whole bunch of these little licks that are only a few seconds long, but an absolute pain in the ass to play so I ended up spending a disproportionate amount of time on performing them at an acceptable level. Most of them aren't worth making a single video for, so I thought I save up a few and compile them into a single video to give you an idea of what the most time-consuming parts sound like (which are ironically some of the shortest)!
These all took hours to get as clean as I did, with the last tapping part taking a whopping 4 days of attempts because I had to keep pausing to give my tapping finger time to heal and avoid blistering 😅
The medley wouldn't be complete without one of the most beloved themes of this generation: Champion Cynthia battle!
I already covered this tune nearly 10 years ago so this was a great opportunity to reflect on my original arrangement and analyze what I did right and what could be improved on. The section in this clip ended up being very close to the original arrangement, save for a few small details. I threw some new spins on the later sections, but since they're still lacking some key instrumentation you'll have to wait a little longer until release to hear how they turned out. Hope you're digging how it's sounding so far!
Slowly but surely progress is being made on the medley! This week I'm working on the high-gain guitar parts, for which I'm using my new (well not so new but previously-unseen) Solar guitar. Here's a little look at it in action on one of the stand-out tracks of the medley.
Over the past couple of weeks I've been hard at work tracking guitars for the medley! I'm really growing fond of the sound and versatility of the new Tele - it works great not only for clean stuff but also crunchy rhythm work like in this section.
By the time the next update is out I'll most likely have gotten around to recording some of the heavier stuff in the medley, so anyone who's been looking forward to hearing something in that vein won't have to wait much longer!
Over the past week I've been putting my new guitar (75th anniversary Telecaster) to work recording tracks for the medley! Here's a little taste of how the Galactic Building theme is shaping up to sound; clean sounds have always been a bit of a struggle for me but the tele works wonders in that department! I've also put some attention into the mix so hopefully the drums and bass sound a bit fuller/punchier compared to the previous posts.
Now that's it's February I'm sure some of you are wondering when the medley is going to be released so a little update on that is due: unfortunately I was overly-ambitious with the original release date and the recording of all the parts is proving to be longer than I had anticipated, so the release will almost certainly be delayed until at least March. I know that this is disappointing to hear and for that I apologize, but after all the time I've invested into this project so far, I really don't want to rush the last ~10% at risk of compromising on quality, so I'm going to take as much time as needed to get the final product sounding as good as I imagine it. I'll continue to post regular updates about the medley here so I hope that will give you something to look forward to in the meantime. I really appreciate all the support you've shown for this project so far and thank you for your understanding!
Over the holidays I recorded a bunch of videos for the medley, mainly keyboards but also some guitars! Here's a little taste of how the leads are shaping up to look and sound. That little lead-in lick is without a doubt one of the most technically challenging guitar parts of the medley!
Happy new year! I'm back at home for the holidays and taking the time to record and film the piano parts for the Diamond & Pearl medley. With that said here's a little taste of how Solaceon Town is shaping up; I did my best to learn the part as true to the original as possible which required some serious brushing up on my piano skills. Hope you enjoy!
The bass tracking continues! Today I'm brushing up on my slap bass skills for the absolute banger that is Route 210. This is without a doubt one of the trickiest bass parts of the medley (and also one of the most fun to play)!
Over the past few weeks, I've been hard at work laying down bass tracks for the medley. Here's a look at one of the (many) takes I did for "Sandgem Town".
Note that most of what you hear won't actually make to the final product - the final audio is usually a combination of several different takes, using the best parts out of all takes. It's a long, repetitive process that isn't complete until I'm sure that I've played every single note the best that I possibly can!
Welcome to my Patreon page and thank you for your support! I'll be posting updates here from time to time on projects that I'm currently working on.
As you probably know, I'm currently hard at work on the upcoming Pokémon Diamond & Pearl Music Medley, so here's a quick run-down on how that's going:
What's done:
✔️ Arrangement ✔️ Drums ✔️ Guest artist tracks ✔️ Some of my tracks
What's still to do:
Tracking the remainder of my parts
Orchestration: humanizing the MIDI to work with the sample libraries (Hollywood Orchestra)
Mixing/mastering
Video
I'm anticipating that the tracking will take most of the time, with the big hurdle being bass (for whatever reason, the bass parts turned out to be especially tricky for this one, but I already have some of the trickiest parts done already). After that's complete, the rest should more or less fall into place.
In terms of the musical content, I'll keep the tracklist secret for now to avoid any major spoilers (you'll hear some previews in due time), but I can reveal that it contains, by far, the most tracks I've ever done for a single video at 20, and the runtime should likewise be a little over 20 minutes.
Overall I'm really excited with how it's shaping up and I can't wait to share the final product with you all when it's complete! As revealed in the teaser video, I'm expecting it to be complete in February. Until then, sit tight and enjoy the updates as they come in! If there's something in particular you'd like to see from me, feel free to leave a comment to this post.
